September 27, 2006

Book Thoughts: James A. Garfield by Ira Rutkow

I have an idiosyncratic interest in President Garfield. I did some ghostwriting a couple of years ago for a book about events of presidential courage, and one of the chapters was originally supposed to be on the death of President Garfield. I wrote about 25 pages on it, and then the chapter got scrapped (apparently surviving for 80 days after being shot is not in fact all that courageous), so it lives on my hard drive alone. But the story was actually pretty interesting -- crazy man is convinced he helped Garfield win the election, and feels entitled to become ambassador to Paris; when he's not offered a job in the administration, he decides Garfield is corrupt and must be removed; he shoots Garfield but the bullet lands in the muscles of his back and if left alone would have healed and Garfield would have lived; but doctors probe the wound with their dirty fingers, and keep poking around in there until he gets an infection which festers and spreads until he dies. In the process of writing the 25 pages I did, I read pretty much every book out there about Garfield, including a fascinating little book from a couple of years after his death that contained dozens of poems published in newspapers around the country celebrating Garfield. Because that's what newspapers apparently did back then -- run poems. So when I saw this new book about Garfield in the library, I wanted to read it. And it's great. It's very much about the medical aspects of the incident, and how the doctors didn't yet believe in Joseph Lister and the idea of keeping things clean and avoiding contamination; and how they thought pus was healthy, and a sign the wound was healing... and all sorts of fun facts like about how one of the doctors arrived by horse and was covered in horse manure when he put his finger into the bullet wound and played around with Garfield's broken rib. If this is more interesting than it is nauseating, you should check it out the book. It's probably the most cogently written thing out there about Garfield. I recommend.